by jphilo | Sep 22, 2010 | Family
September has been a banner month for my husband. In addition to the annual September happenings that make him happy – cooler temperatures and squash season – several new ones have him smiling, too.
First, on the happy list are the blossoms on the trumpet vines he planted two summers ago. After two years of tender and slightly obsessive care, not to mention hours of head rubbing (the gardner’s nervous habit) and yards of chicken wire to ward off hungry dear in the winter, the vines on our pergola are blooming.
Second on the list is the new-fangled watch, formerly on the hubby’s want list and now on his wrist. It’s a special runner’s watch – think of a Get Smart gadget on steroids. Not that the husband is on steroids. No, no, no, not my Pa Ingalls who refuses all drugs, including aspirin, and help from neighbors, even though that nice Mr. Edwards down the way would love to help build our cabin and share his nails.
But I digress. Back to the watch which does everything a runner’s heart desires. It keeps track of time and distance and who knows what else? It even comes with a website, which Hiram showed to his co-workers who are also runners (not while they had patients, mind you), and now they all want a watch like his.
However, the trumpet vine blossoms and the bells-and-whistles watch pale in comparison to the third item on Hiram’s happy list: Sudoku puzzles. Believe it or not, the man did not know about them until July 30, 2010. I was aware of the cursed things, and though I never actively hid their existence from him, I never drew attention to them either. Why? Because I knew their nasty den of rows, columns, and numbers (Can there be a more repugnant combination? Only if one ate asparagus while solving them.) would lure him into their nasty den the minute he saw them.
I was right. Ever since he learned about them at a family reunion – that’s the last time he’s going to on my side of the family – he’s been hooked. He works on them for hours, carries the little book wherever he goes, and dates the ones he solves. If I need to find him, I just follow the trail of eraser crumbs. And at the end of the trail, what do I see?
A man, fit and trim at 54, with all the hair rubbed off the top of his head. He’s smiling, always smiling, clutching a book full of rows, columns and numbers close to his chest. He is one happy, happy man.
What’s not to love about a guy like that?
by jphilo | Sep 8, 2010 | Family
Last night at supper, Hiram and I talked about the kids. Maybe the box of tomatoes and the five pumpkins on the counter led to the topic of last night’s supper conversation. After all, the vegetables were gifts from our kids: the tomatoes from Allen and the pumpkins from Anne. Or maybe we talked about them because, as every parent knows, once you have kids they are the focal point of most conversations, even after they are married and independent.
“Did Allen’s childhood give you any clue,” I ventured, “that he would become Pharmer Boy?”
Hiram thought for awhile. “Well, he liked his dog.” Then he thought some more. “No,” he said. “No.”
I stared at the vegetables on the counter. They stared back, patiently waiting to be processed and frozen. “And Anne,” I went on. “She always talked about gardening in the spring, but never carried through. And now look, she’s become Pharmer Girl. And they have pharmer spouses who want to grow their own organic food and live in the country.”
“They’re like a throw back to our parents’ generation,” Hiram said. “Can you imagine the conversations they could have if their grandpas were alive.”
I tried to imagine it. My dad shooting the breeze with Allen about which cattle were best for meat and dairy. My daughter picking apples in the orchard with Hiram’s dad, learning how to press cider and dry apples.
For a moment, I grieved the pleasure denied four people I love dearly. Then I went to the counter, picked up a paring knife and began peeling the tomatoes. The flesh was firm in my hands, succulent and rich as the memory of the two kind men who passed down their love of field and critter to our children.
Thank you, Dad.
Thank you, Dave.
You would be so proud of Pharmer Allen and Pharmer Anne.
by jphilo | Sep 7, 2010 | Family
We spent the weekend at our annual Labor Day reunion. Each September we gather, the two branches of our extended family with roots in the northwest Iowa town. For 36 – 48 hours we visit, eat, play, reminisce and create new memories as we have done for almost 25 years.
But this year’s reunion felt different. All weekend, I felt like a character in a fantasy story. You know, the oddball wearing animal skins who materializes at the edge of the forest. She sniffs the air and licks a finger to test the wind. After a brief pronouncement, “The wind is shifting. Big change coming,” her eyes twinkle wisely, and she disappears into the forest.
The cabin we stayed in over Labor Day didn’t have a forest nearby, just a cornfield on one side and a lake on the other. It was sweatshirt weather, too chilly for off-the-shoulder animal skins and prophetic announcements. But all weekend, I was sniffing the air and watching the wind change us.
Some of the children, who were babies and toddlers at the first reunion, are now married. Some are parents of their own babies and toddlers. The babies who joined our midst in the late 80s and early 90s, who made the S.O Weird Cousins videos each year, are college students. They don’t make videos any more. They sit around and catch up on one another’s lives and talk about getting what they call “real jobs” in the next few years.
My siblings and cousins and our spouses are the age our parents were when the reunions first began…though we feel much younger than they did, I’m sure. Our parents are older, grayer, content to observe the goings on instead of leading our energetic troops.
While we sat and ate and played and did all the things we do each Labor Day, our roles shifted slightly. The balance of power tipping ever-so-slightly to the younger generation. The old order of things is drawing to a close, and a new dawn is taking shape.
The wind is shifting. Big change coming.
by jphilo | Sep 5, 2010 | Family
On Saturday, I said good-bye to one of the bravest men I know – my Uncle Marvin. In June, at age 86 and after two bouts with pneumonia, tests revealed that when he swallows, sometimes food goes into his stomach and sometimes into his lungs.
The doctors gave him options. He could have a feeding tube down his nose. Or one could be surgically implanted. Or he could do nothing and let nature take it’s course. Having lived a full, independent and healthy life until this complication arose, he declined treatment and has been in hospice in a small Minnesota town ever since.
So last Saturday, when we were in Minnesota for our annual family reunion, Mom and I stopped to visit. His wife Letha, my mom’s sister was there, along with several of their children and extended families. I watched Marvin, thin but alert, make small talk with his children, his wife, and Mom.
While they talked, I signed his memory quilt. I thought of all the visits to Marvin and Letha’s big, white farmhouse – torn down many years ago – of all the overnight weekend stays with Karen, their daughter, of the summer weeks spent on their farm gathering eggs, climbing in the haymow, eating supper in their crowded kitchen, and watching TV in the dining room.
Most off all, I remembered Marvin going into the living room after supper and sitting down at his electric organ. I remembered him playing tune after tune, with never a piece of sheet music in sight. I remembered how his shoulders relaxed, the corners of his mouth turned up, his body swayed to the music, and his eyes had a far away look the longer he played.
When I looked down to blink away tears, the marker was still in my hand. I turned to put it on the end table beside the couch where I sat. But it wasn’t an end table.
It was an electric organ.
Uncle Marvin’s organ.
I looked at my uncle visiting with those who love him. He was so thin and frail, but his shoulders were relaxed, a smile curved the corners of his mouth, and his eyes wore a far away look. Though I couldn’t hear the music, it was there. The final stanza of my uncle’s life.
Beautiful and brave.
Slow and soft.
Haunting and heart-wrenching.
Thanks for the music, Uncle Marvin. You’re playing it well.
by jphilo | Aug 24, 2010 | Family
Sadness kept me company on this morning’s walk. No matter how hard I tried to steer my thoughts to smoother ground, they continually strayed to the uneven place where we stood and buried Uncle Marvin yesterday.
All I could think about were his grandchildren, the honorary pallbearers, gathered from Minnesota and Iowa, North Dakota and Illinois, and one recently returned from Egypt. They stood tall and straight and lovely, in the tiny country cemetery where their grandfather joined his parents, grandparents, and grandparents, only a few miles from where he’d been born and lived all his years.
These sweet carriers of our family’s future stood guard over the coffin, grave and composed during the pastor’s committal service, through the military gun salute, the folding of the flag, and it’s presentation to their grandmother. But when haunting notes of Taps filled the air, they began to cry, realizing for perhaps the first time in their young lives, that there is an end to every good thing.
Will this be the end of their connection to the family farm? I wondered, as they placed flowers on their grandpa’s coffin and said good-by. Will they return to their homes far away and forget their family’s long history in this place, the connection to the land that binds their parents together?
Sadness weighed heavy on me, and my head drooped lower. It’s over, I thought, and tears came to my eyes. For a moment, the sky wept, too, and raindrops wet my shoulders and hair. Maybe I should just give up and go home, I thought, too sad to fight life’s changes or the weather anymore. I looked up to check the sky.
And there against the grey clouds in the east was the beginning of a rainbow. A small, faded streak at first, it grew brighter and brighter the longer I looked up. Slowly, my sad weight lifted, and when I turned the corner I walked beside the rainbow. The further I went, the brighter the rainbow grew, until finally it stretched across the sky, bold against the grey clouds.
When those sweet grandchildren and their far-flung adventures came to mind again, the rainbow whispered to me.
Hope, it said so softly I had to strain to hear the word.
Hope.
by jphilo | Jul 27, 2010 | Family
Whoever came up with the saying “A picture’s worth a thousand words” sure knew what she was talking about. We just received the disc of pictures taken in the photo booth at Anne and her husband’s wedding, and they are priceless.
Hiram and I have laughed ourselves silly looking at the shenanigans of friends and family during the wedding reception. Give a guest, young or old, some costumes to wear and a black box to clown around in, and whammo, the inner child comes out.
My inner child, along with my innate fashion sense, emerged once I put on a furry hat, Groucho Marx glasses and a clown collar. And Hiram, in Gerald Burghduff’s old cowboy hat and googly glasses was one handsome hunka-munka. How could I resist either sticking my finger in his nose or kissing him?
Lest you think my actions were highly original, let me assure you that there were at least 5 other nose pokes and 14 couples who took advantage of the photo booth’s privacy to have a quick smooch.
Most of those couples were as old as me, which brings up the second subject of this post. Today is my birthday, and yes, I’m old enough to know better than to stick my finger in my husband’s nose. I’m also old enough to think twice about posting a picture of the two of us smooching. But after thinking twice, I decided it was exactly the right thing to do. After all, both my recently married children indulged in a photo booth smooch with their respective spouses. I need to set a good example, right? After all, my greatest hope for our children’s marriages is that at age 54 they still want to catch a smooch with their sweeties when the opportunity arises.
Happy marriage to you, Allen.
Happy marriage to you, Anne.
Happy anniversary, dear Hiram,
And happy birthday to me.
